Clerk, 2021.
Directed by Malcolm Ingram.
Featuring Kevin Smith.
SYNOPSIS:
A documentary on the career and life of filmmaker and raconteur Kevin Smith.
It won’t surprise anyone to learn that this travelogue of Kevin Smith’s inimitable filmmaking career is a for-the-fans outing above all else – after all, it’s directed by Smith’s longtime friend, documentarian Malcolm Ingram. And though it doesn’t provide much of an “in” for outsiders, Clerk delivers a concise, warm-hearted rundown of the man’s life and times.
Ingram’s film opens with a VHS message a 21-year-old Smith recorded for his parents in July 1992, shortly before moving to British Columbia to attend Vancouver Film School. The never-before-seen clip quickly concedes both his passion for film and love for his parents, and serves as an apt primer to discuss a director whose works, perhaps more than almost any other filmmaker, feel as though produced by a tight-knit family.
Across its near-two-hour runtime, Clerk provides a pacy whistle-stop tour through Smith’s 25-plus years in the film industry, for despite the suggestion of its title, the doc is concerned less with getting into the nitty-gritty of Clerks than it is concisely mapping out the intricate tapestry of Smith’s entire career.
Ingram’s major coup is in gaining so much access to the man himself, who appears in practically every segment to discuss the highs and lows of his filmography. He even takes audiences on a ride-along, driving past the schools where he spent his formative years, and later stopping by Glendale’s Alex Theatre where he suffered his near-fatal 2018 heart attack.
Though much of what’s verbalised here won’t be new to Smith acolytes, the subject’s ubiquitous presence does allow for an uncommonly intimate portrait, tracing the myriad influences crucial to his eventual success; his relationship with his movie-loving father, his youthful friendships with producer Scott Mosier and star Jason Mewes, and a pivotal screening of Richard Linklater’s indie classic Slacker.
While Ingram’s film can’t help but confess Smith’s talent, the director is humble enough to appreciate that he didn’t get to where he is now without a healthy sprinkle of luck and good timing. After all, had Clerks premiered just a few short years later, in an era defined by the Internet and an army of guerrilla filmmakers, his generation-defining work may have faced a tougher struggle to stand out.
But as the doc also argues, Smith’s career is so deceptively diverse and multi-faceted in both subject matter and production. Yes, many of his films are pre-occupied with comic book banter and dick ‘n’ fart jokes, but we can’t forget that Smith’s second film, Mallrats, was a painful sophomore slump, before he made Chasing Amy for just $250,000, got the Good Will Hunting script to Harvey Weinstein and executive-produced it, which led to the wildly controversial Dogma, the outrageous Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and the birth of the Askewniverse as an inter-connected cinematic universe years before Marvel made the concept truly mainstream.
This was the turning point where Smith was transformed from a cult filmmaker into a wider pop icon – an Internet presence a decade before every celebrity had their own Twitter account, a comic book writer, the king of a merchandise empire, a stage entertainer through his various Q&A tours, and of course a podcaster. It isn’t giving Smith unearned praise to say that he helped normalise “nerdom” in the wider landscape, which surely wouldn’t look the same today without his irreverent cheerleading.
Throughout this doc, Smith generously provides hilarious and informative anecdotes for almost every single film and major enterprise he’s undertaken, and rather than circumscribe his more contentious projects freely discusses them – aside from his critically-panned Yoga Hosers, which he scarcely says a word about, tellingly.
The filmmaker openly talks about the painful commercial under-performance of both Jersey Girl and especially 2008’s Zack and Miri Make a Porno, the latter of which saw star Seth Rogen introduce Smith to weed, in turn charting a wildly unexpected career off-ramp for the director.
2010’s buddy cop bust Cop Out may have been a misguided attempt to reclaim some mainstream cred, but the subsequent likes of Red State and Tusk confirmed Smith’s ability to work within a radically different genre wheelhouse – wildly divisive though these films were – and also his commitment to eschewing traditional movie distribution models, now opting to release his films via a tour-style showcase.
Smith is however acutely aware that the back-end of his career has alienated many, and crushingly calls Clerks 2 “the last good time,” an opinion one hopes he might’ve mellowed on since the release of Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, a dew-eyed yet heartfelt victory lap for the Askewniverse and one willed into existence following his aforementioned health scare. Hilariously, Smith confesses that after his heart attack, he thought to himself, “If I die tonight, Yoga Hosers is the last movie I make.”
Smith puts so much of himself into his films that this doc too is unsurprisingly awash in the man’s personal life, namely his family, his daily drug habits, the comings-and-goings of collaborators such as Scott Mosier, the Harvey Weinstein debacle, and his commitment to weight loss following his heart attack.
Clerk benefits enormously from the extensive access to not only Smith but also so many in his orbit – including but not limited to Jason Mewes, Richard Linklater, Brian O’Halloran, Jason Reitman, Stan Lee, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Penn Jillette, though unsurprisingly not the famously reclusive Clerks star Jeff Anderson.
Combined with a treasure trove of unseen video footage and photography from Smith’s family archives, this ends up feeling like so much more than the hagiography it could so easily have been, even if it can’t help but present Smith as the thoroughly charming, heart-on-sleeve artist he absolutely is.
If you’re already a Smith fan this will likely only further endear you to him and his life’s work – a filmmaker who has threaded a path through Hollywood quite unlike any other, mostly for the better.
This deeply personal warts-and-all documentary won’t tell diehard fans too much they don’t already know, but nevertheless delivers a vibrant portrait of a singular filmmaking talent.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Shaun Munro – Follow me on Twitter for more film rambling.
